“His affection for his son, and for his two principal wives, shows that the disposition of Rameses II. was in some respects amiable; although, upon the whole, his character is one which scarcely commends itself to our approval. Professing in his early years extreme devotion to the memory of his father, he lived to show himself his father’s worst enemy, and to aim at obliterating his memory by erasing his name from the monuments on which it occurred, and in many cases substituting his own. Amid a great show of regard for the deities of his country, and for the ordinances of the established worship, he contrived that the chief result of all that he did for religion should be the glorification of himself. Other kings had arrogated to themselves a certain qualified dignity, and after their deaths had sometimes been placed by some of their successors on a par with the real national gods; but it remained for Rameses to associate himself during his lifetime with such leading deities as Ptah, Ammon, and Horus, and to claim equally with them the religious regards of his subjects. He was also, as already observed, the first to introduce into Egypt the degrading custom of polygamy and the corrupting influence of a harem. Even his bravery, which cannot be denied, loses half its merit by being made the constant subject of boasting; and his magnificence ceases to appear admirable when we think at what a cost it displayed itself. If, with most recent writers upon Egyptian history, we identify him with the ‘king who knew not Joseph,’ the builder of Pithom and Raamses, the first oppressor of the Israelites, we must add some darker shades to the picture, and look upon him as a cruel and ruthless despot, who did not shrink from inflicting on innocent persons the severest pain and suffering.”
CHAPTER XIII.
The Hieroglyphics of Rameses II.
First side.—Right hand.
“Horus, powerful bull, son of Tum, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-user-ma-sotep-en-Ra, lord of kingly and queenly royalty, guardian of Kham (Egypt), chastiser of foreign lands, son of the sun, Ra-meri-Amen, dragging the foreigners of southern nations to the Great Sea, the foreigners of northern nations to the four poles of heaven, lord of the two countries, Ra-user-ma-sotep-en-Ra, son of the sun, Ra-mes-su-men-Amen, giver of life like the sun.”
Most of the above hieroglyphs have already been explained, but the following remarks will enable the reader to understand better this column of hieroglyphs.
Cartouche containing the divine name of Rameses:—